


Malice Aforethought

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since Sam left with his brother, things have been... different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Malice Aforethought

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiwiana](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=kiwiana).



> [Malice Aforethought: The Art](http://dreamlittleyo.livejournal.com/178424.html)

Jess watches them leave from the kitchen window. She starts missing Sam as soon as she sees the taillights of his brother’s car disappear around the side of the building. The alley where it was parked—seriously, who _does_ that when there’s a visitor’s lot right out front—seems all the darker for the absence, and when she reluctantly turns back around to face the apartment, there’s a surreal moment when it feels the same inside as without. The old, familiar angles of the fridge and the couch in the living room have taken on a sinister, sharp lean. The mild flicker of the overhead light hurts her eyes.

Sam spent almost a month trying to fix that light when they first moved in here. He worked with such dogged, heated determination that Jess was a little frightened—not of him, never that, but _for_ him. She tried to convince him that she didn’t mind, although she’d gotten tension headaches from cooking in there the first few nights, but it quickly became apparent that Sam wasn’t doing this for her.

The flickering light—the one giving off a low-level, threatening hum right now—terrified him on a primal level for some reason. He gave up on fixing it finally, gave up with an air of reluctant resignation, but Jess realizes now that she doesn’t ever really see him in here after dark. When he does need to come in—to grab a beer from the fridge or fix a late night snack—the light stays off and he works in the dark.

Jess folds her arms across her stomach, holding herself on a sudden chill. She looks at the strange, empty apartment and listens to the light hum in the silence. When a floorboard creaks in the other room, she’s sharply aware of how short the line of sight in their twisting, formerly cozy apartment really is. Can’t see further than the entrance to the next room—certainly can’t see down the hallway with its many doors, or around the corners into all of those shadowed hiding places.

The creak comes again, and Jess thinks about calling Sam right now and demanding he come back here and send his brother—that Dean with his smirks and wandering eyes ( _wasn’t really looking, though; he was just going through the motions, just putting on a show_ )—away. Or, failing that, she could insist they take her along. Family business, is what Sam’s brother said, but she’s family, she _is_. Sam has said as much—he’s whispered promises and dreams into her ears, she’s held him as he’s come awake from nightmares that leave him panting and shaken, they’ve screamed at each other and made up on the other side of hurtful anger, and what could be more familial than that?

Sam moved around his brother with the cagey, careful wariness of a ranger approaching a wolf. He looked at him with a cop’s concerned eyes—stood between Dean and Jess, moved her out of the room when he left himself, like he was worried about leaving her alone with the man. Before tonight, Sam has only ever been warm and easy-going. He belongs on this campus, belongs in this brightly-lit, rational world.

Dean is cold. Even in the few minutes they spoke, Jess saw that much. Dean is isolated, and he’s separate, and he’s dangerous. He’s a lean, winter-starved wolf prowling outside the farmhouse.

Sam has more in common with Jess than he’d ever have with someone like that. He’s her family, and she’s his. He doesn’t fit with the cold, sharp wind he left alongside.

He’d come back to her if she called. He would.

But as the kitchen light flickers ever more violently, in defiance of everything her rational mind tells her, there’s a cold, pit in her stomach. She’s remembering watching them walk the short distance down the alley to Dean’s car. Remembering how out of step they were at first, how Sam’s gait shifted in only a few paces. How they moved into their places, opened their doors on the same moment, and slid in, and closed them. Practiced. Easy. Like slipping on an old, familiar jacket that hasn’t been worn in a few years, but nevertheless fits.

She doesn’t call.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There are nightmares that night, what little is left of it. The first is bad enough that Jess jerks awake with a scream in her throat, then fumbles on the light to the left of the bed and sits huddled against the headboard with her arms wrapped around her knees. She can’t remember what she dreamed—just a confused, chilled sensation of death closing in; of pain and loss and suffering—but it takes her an hour to drift back under.

The light is on this time, but it doesn’t help, and when her own cries of fear and pain bring her awake again, she stays that way until morning.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Jess wakes to sunlight streaming into her room. She’s slumped at an awkward angle across the bed, was sleeping half on Sam’s side and half on hers. She’s groggy for a few moments, but eventually recalls falling asleep with dawn coming in through the window—dawn, the great dissolver of evil dreams.

Only if that’s the case, why is a lingering film of dread still clinging to her skin? Why is her hair damp with sweat?

Rubbing her eyes with one hand, Jess sits up and makes her way into the bathroom, where she brushes her teeth to take the sour taste of fear from her mouth. Splashing her face with water helps a little more, and she’s certain that coffee will clear the rest of that horrible night from her mind.

She starts for the kitchen and then freezes in the hallway, staring through the doorframe into the living room with wide, terrified eyes.

The couch, which was resting in its place against the wall when she went to sleep, is now in the center of the room. The rest of the furniture ( _coffee table, armchair, entertainment center, bookcase_ ) has been piled on top of it.

The world seems to pulse around Jess as she sinks to her knees, one hand pressed against the wall and the other covering her mouth. It’s impossible, what she’s seeing. Surely she would have heard the furniture being moved. Surely she would have heard someone ( _something_ ) come in.

But she didn’t. She didn’t, unless in her dreams.

 _Sam,_ she thinks, shutting her eyes and leaning her cheek against the wall. _Sam, come home._

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Thanks for helping,” Jess offers, once most everything is back in its proper place.

Brady wipes his forearm across his forehead—he’s a strong guy, but even for him, lifting all that furniture wasn’t light work—and gives her a smile as he accepts the beer she hands him. “Hey, anytime, Jess. I’ll talk to the boys over at Tau Beta Phi, too.”

“You’re sure it was a pledge prank?” she asks. It was his first assessment when she called and got him over here—calm, rational Brady, who was the one who ended up introducing her to Sam at a kegger two years ago. Just having him in the apartment with her makes her feel better.

“Sure,” he answers after swallowing his mouthful of beer. “I’ve seen it before. The guys probably thought Sam’d be home and give the pledges what for.”

“But how did they get in?” Jess insists. “The doors were locked.”

“Your kitchen window was open when I came in,” Brady answers, with a nod in that direction. “They probably climbed up the fire escape and came in that way.”

“I guess so,” Jess says slowly, trying to remember whether she opened the window at all yesterday. Whether Sam opened it. It was shut, though. She’s almost sure. It was shut and locked when she looked through it, watching Sam pull away down the alley in his brother’s car.

She shivers and Brady, who never misses a thing, grins and pulls her into a one-armed hug.

“C’mere, kid,” he says, squeezing her tight. “It’s fine. I mean, you’ve got a right to be rattled—waking up to that sight’s enough to throw anyone off. You want me to mess ‘em up a little for scaring you?”

He makes a mock growling noise and Jess can’t help giggling despite the lingering tightness in her chest.

“No, really. I’ll put the fear of God in ‘em. Or at least the fear of Brady.”

“Oh, the horrors,” Jess murmurs as he releases her again and she steps away.

“I can be plenty terrifying, I’ll have you know.”

Jess looks at him—sandy-haired, preppie Brady, who is a little spoiled but doesn’t have a mean bone in his body—and laughs louder.

“That’s the spirit!” he says, encouraging, and takes another sip from his beer before adding, “Tell you what, you’re coming out with me tonight. Cam and I are going to check out that new bar downtown. They’ve got karaoke. You’ll come out, have a few too many beers, sing yourself hoarse… It’ll be great!”

Jess doesn’t really feel like throwing herself into the middle of that much hustle and bustle—she’s still too rattled from her night and the morning that followed—but the alternative is to sit home by herself. The thought of being alone in this apartment at night isn’t really all that appealing right now.

“Okay,” she says, nodding. “You’re on.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She tries Sam around three. The call goes straight to his voicemail, and she listens to his voice—Hi, this is Sam Winchester’s phone. I can’t pick up right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you.—and then hangs up without saying anything.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The bar is everything Brady promised. Despite her unease, Jess finds herself finally relaxing—unbends enough after her third beer to get up and sing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun along with Brady and Cam, to the enthusiastic cheers of the drunken crowd. When Brady walks her back to the apartment and offers to come up with her, she feels safe and comfortable enough to turn him down.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” she says, kissing his cheek.

“You bet, Jess,” Brady answers. He rubs her back with one hand before stepping away. “When Sam calls, tell him he’s an asshole for missing the best vocal performance in the history of Palo Alto.”

Jess laughs—Brady knows very well that the three of them sounded like cats yowling at the moon—and pushes playfully at his shoulder. “Go home, you bum.”

“Good bum,” Brady corrects, shaking his ass drunkenly in her direction, and she’s still laughing as she goes upstairs.

She’s smiling when she unlocks the apartment door, smiling as she steps inside and turns on the light. She’s humming to herself as she heads deeper into the apartment, and then she turns on the hall light and freezes with a scream in her throat.

The words scrawled in red across both sides of the hallway glare at her. They seem to slither over the surface of the plaster, seem to be writhing in agony.

 **Welcome Home, Jess,** the largest of the letters read. And around them, in a smaller, more cramped hand, the walls say, **burn burn blacken the skin, red inside, red outside, burn you burn with us, cut you open.**

Jess’ eyes water as she scrambles for her phone—there’s a madman in here with her, some insane psycho, he’s going to grab her at any second—and then, just as her hand closes around the cool plastic, the red words dissolve. They smoke and lift from the wall, hanging in the air briefly before dissipating.

The phone drops to the floor with a clatter from Jess’ numb fingers as she staggers back against the wall behind her. And stares. And stares.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Someone slipped something into her drink at the bar.

That’s the explanation she works up after almost thirty minutes of hysteria. After she has run through the apartment and turned on all the lights. After she is curled up under the covers on Sam’s side of the bed with the phone in her hands.

She almost called him a bunch of times, only to stop when she realized what she would sound like. How crazy it seems, even to her.

But a drug—some kind of bad trip—that would explain the writing. The frat prank explains the furniture.

Letting out a slow breath, Jess speed dials Sam and holds the phone up to her ear.

This time, when it goes through to his voicemail, she squeezes her eyes more tightly shut and says, “Sam, it’s me. I—”

 _I what? I’m having a terrible weekend, come home right now? Screw your family, they didn’t care about you for three years, I have. I’ve been here for you, be here for me now._

But she can’t do that. She’s too afraid of how he’ll respond.

Tears slipping down her cheeks, Jess erases her message and hangs up.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Nightmares again. Worse, this time, because she’s conscious enough during them to know that she’s being burnt. She’s stumbling through their apartment on fire, with pieces of her skin coming off and her eyelids burnt to crispy, black discs. Sam can put the fire out, she knows, if she can just find him, but it isn’t Sam she runs into.   
It’s his brother. It’s Dean, sitting on her and Sam’s bed and smirking up at Jess with a knife in one hand.

“Welcome to the family, Jess,” he says, and she feels her stomach open. She feels her insides pour out and fall around her feet.

Dean shakes his head and clucks his tongue. He’s looking at her like she’s a poorly disciplined puppy that just piddled itself.

“Messy, messy.”

And then, just as some invisible force grips her by the scruff of the neck and lifts her, she wakes up.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Sam. Sam, it’s me. It’s Jess. I know it’s late, but I. I wanted to talk. Call me? Please?”

Click.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He doesn’t call. Jess didn’t really think he would.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In the morning, all of the food in the fridge is spoiled.

Jess stares at it for a long moment—at the maggots moving sluggishly through meat that was perfectly fine the night before, at cheese fuzzy with green mold, at the grey, soggy carton of milk—and then shuts the door again. She feels feverish and faint as she moves over to the sink, leans over it, and throws up.

When she manages to take a second look thirty minutes later, the inside of the fridge is back to normal.

She throws everything out anyway, just to be safe.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I’m going insane.”

They’re words spoken in the privacy of her bathroom, while looking at her reflection in the mirror. It helps a little, hearing the words out loud. It makes them less terrifying than they felt inside.

Her reflection smiles and reaches out a hand to caress the inside of the mirror.

“You’re going to die,” it says, sweetly, and bursts into flame.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She calls Brady first, begs him to come over, and once she knows he’s on the way, she calls Sam again. This time, his phone actually rings, although he still doesn’t answer.

She thinks about what to say while she’s waiting, what to tell him, but it’s too wretched and horrible to do this over the phone. Her voice, when she finally speaks, sounds steady and calm in her ears—bright, even.

“Hey, Sam. Me again. I guess you guys are really busy over there, huh? Just wanted to call and say hi, see how you were doing. I can’t wait to see you again. Love you, baby.”

She doesn’t say goodbye. She can’t bear to.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Brady is a pillar of rationality. Brady holds her while she sobs and cries and tells him about the nightmares, and the writing, and the fridge, and the image of herself in the mirror, but most of all about the creeping, sullen dread that has filled her chest ever since Sam’s brother showed up in the middle of the night to take him away.

Brady listens to it all and then he looks her in the eyes and says, “You’re not going crazy.”

“I’m not?”

“No.” He smiles at her, blinks, and suddenly his eyes are black. Black all over, like looking into two pools of oil. “I really am going to kill you. Now, how about we bake some cookies while we wait for Sam?”


End file.
